The Crisis Of The Negro Intellectual: From Its Origins To The Present

by Harold Cruse

Published in 1967, as the early triumphs of the Civil Rights movement yielded to increasing frustration and violence, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual electrified a generation of activists and intellectuals. The product of a lifetime of struggle and reflection, Cruse's book is a singular amalgam of cultural history, passionate disputation, and deeply considered analysis of the relationship between American blacks and American society. Reviewing black intellectual life from the Harlem Renaissance through the 1960s, Cruse discusses the legacy (and offers memorably acid-edged portraits) of figures such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin, arguing that their work was marked by a failure to understand the specifically American character of racism in the United States. This supplies the background to Cruse's controversial critique of both integrationism and black nationalism and to his claim that black Americans will only assume a just place within American life when they develop their own distinctive centers of cultural and economic influence. For Cruse's most important accomplishment may well be his rejection of the clich?s of the melting pot in favor of a vision of Americanness as an arena of necessary and vital contention, an open and ongoing struggle.

Genres: History, Politics, Race, Nonfiction, Philosophy, African American, American History

594 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Harold Wright Cruse was an American academic who was an outspoken social critic and teacher of African American studies at the University of Michigan until the mid-1980s. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967) is his best-known book.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm very glad to have read this book, but good grief was it a chore to get through. Cruse has an interesting argument: that Black American intellectual life (c. 1968) remains hamstrung by its inability to move past allegiances to white communism, nationalism, and integrationism. So far so good.

Now imagine someone yelling that at you for 600+ unbearably repetitive pages. Not a pleasant experience, nor a profitable one.

Add to this some extraneous, far less useful claims: for instance, his attempt to position Black Americans as nothing less than the subject of American revolutionary politics, while also insisting that no actually existing Black Americans, other than himself, have any frigging idea about anything; or his claim that Harlem, in particular, is the epicenter of that historical subject.

It's important to note that Cruse's work is, in some ways, ahead of its time, and is also worth reading for intellectual history purposes. In particular, his insistence on the importance of the media in American politics was a good one.

But he makes no positive claims other than "we have to do everything perfectly at once," which isn't so helpful. I don't mind when people don't make positive claims. But if you're going to shred every living soul to pieces, you'd better do *something* other than gesture at a vague utopia.

[Lawrence Grandpre · Rating 5 out of 5]

He criticizes everything and everyone...He's basically right on every criticism. He promotes nationalism while vigorously critiquing the nationalists in the 60s. Basically predicts the limitations of Black Lives Matter and creates a blueprint of the cultural hegemony of the liberal and Marxist left and promotes independent cultural, economic and political organizations for Black people to counter these dynamics. A difficult but absolutely essential book.

[Joi Reece · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit difficult to digest. A major reason for this is that the book is essentially a collection of loosely connected essays. Perhaps had I known that before, I would have viewed it through that lens and been better prepared for this type of writing style.

That stated, basically this book describes Cruse’s diatribes against the Civil Rights movement for ignoring the economic problems that inundated us then and now. Cruse discusses the legacy of people such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin, arguing that their work was marked by a failure to understand racism in the United States.

With that said, I can’t deny that this book changed the informational axes of the study of black political debate. Cruise was, without doubt, a critical interlocutor.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is densely and elegantly written, and is certainly not a quick read, but it is an interesting look critique of the civil rights movement from a Black nationalist perspective. Written during the late 1960's Cruse focusses almost entirely on Harlem. His analysis stretches from struggles with and within the Communist Party of the 1920's up through the liberalism of the 1960's, with a special focus on culture. He has harsh things to say about a lot of people who are largely celebrated today. An interesting period view of history being made.

[Eric Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book is still so very real and relevant! It was like he wrote it yesterday. If we lived in an intelligent country than this book would be required reading for every body. But as we don't every black college kid should be forced to read it, even though most would not want want too.

[Alan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

To update this book all that would be required would be to insert the year 2016 and then add the names of the guilty today in place of the social justice actors who initially were the cause for the book to have to be written. Leave commentary and insights as is then at the end tie into the current state of Black leadership today. Shouldn't take more than a week if its called satire.

[Dennis Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

An invaluable analysis of the struggle of sub-dominant groups to generate self-empowerment in the United States.

[Cath Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a book written in 1967, it is so reveling today!

[Marsha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jealous of his talented friends, Cruse arrogantly disparages some the the great minds and successful writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Cruse details problems without offering any solid solutions. A former Communist, he rails against Communism, West Indians, and Jews. His anti-Semetic rants deepen the murky pool of anger that goes on for around six hundred pages. Read Ralph Ellison or James Baldwin instead. They are two of the great minds he finds fault with.

[Sylvanus Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

An in-depth historical analysis and assessment of the intellectual journey of the African American in the post-slavery era and the stubborn impacts of Jim Crow laws that followed through the 1960s. Professor Harold Cruse presents persuasive arguments in favor of versus against integration in the face of tokenism and the frustration felt in underserved communities (mostly black communities). Absolutely insightful! It helps one appreciate how far we have evolved.

[Fred R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't be put off by the long digressions into obscure leftwing 1920s and 30s history. This is one of the best books written on race and ethnicity in America. A history of race and ethnicity, as Cruse recognizes, is necessarily a history of political and cultural conflict, no matter how sublimated.

[John Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long, but good history for someone born in 90’s. Also went to CUNY.

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Crisis of Black Leadership in America

The problems that Black Americans face are overwhelming. Sadly many of those problems surfaced during the summer of 2020 with the unjust shooting of numerous Black Americans. Each case must be judged on its own merits but the numbers suggest that there is certainly a problem. What is surprising to this reader is the fact that in the past sixty years so little has been done to improve the organization of the lives of Black Americans. Let's turn to Harold Cruse book for a review.

1. Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, 1954: The Supreme Court recognizes the terrible damage done to the esteem and self-worth of Black Americans by systematic racial discrimination in public schools. In fact the practice of public education, the very means for acquiring an important and substantial sense of self, come from public education and the opportunities provided by it. Yet Black children were discouraged and handicapped by being told that schooling could not be integrated. Insults were piled on insults, even in the form of books which we "handed down" by more affluent white schools .

2. The Civil Rights Movement of 1968: Simple things like riding public transportation or sitting at a diner were contested by the noble souls who engaged in civil disobedience. Protest, often met with police resistance, was the only means available to achieve recognition of the just claims of Black Americans. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail became a classic composition expressing the need for immediate action. To this day the composition of this "Letter" remains a high water mark in the struggle for justice.

3. The Dumbfounding Loss of Black Leadership in America: If ever there was a social movement that needed good leadership it was the Black community. Yet to this day such leadership is absent and remains inaccessible to most of the community. Stanley Crouch points out in his introduction to this now classic work, "Most of the loudmouths and loons who dominated the ethnic lost generation of the late Sixties and Seventies remain in our memory as no more than embarrassments...Black Panther leader Huey Newton was a dope addict, Stokely Carmichael lives in West Africa, Rap Brown did a life sentence for killing a black police officer, and Le Roi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka." So much for Black leadership.

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't even skim through this thing without witnessing further banality of Communism, "White folk," "The Jews!!!" &c. Life is terrible. Its levels of futility are figurative. I don't get you, you don't get me. I know, I know, it's shocking.

If only you'd realize screaming and blocking traffic on bridges leads to meaningless imprisonment, and that all this time you should have just read Goethe. The library was right there. You've run out of lies.

[Carmen]

Review to come later...

[Laurie]

An excellent argument for the role intellectuals can have in bridging political problems and cultural problems.

[Malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

repetitive and wordy. hater of the year (1967).

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of many things! Among them, a sharp post-mortem on how forklifting movements can fail. Like, white communists organizing a picket of the Apollo's hiring practices - yeah, why didn't that work? Some very erudite axe-grinding, occasionally with micro-specificity. Includes this savage compliment of James Baldwin:
"Debates on morals and ethics, emotional appeals to conscience, the literary explorations of the American psychic malaise, the cult of chic belles-lettres fortified with the current phraseology of the protest movement, sprinkled with personal ironies and social witticisms, make fascinating reading for aesthetes. But that - by itself - becomes a rather superficial literary mode of involvement when pitted against the ideas of the ranking exponents of social reform, liberal, radical, or otherwise."

[Imani ♥ ☮ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harold Cruse is a remarkable figure, especially if you want to know more about the history of black intellectualism leading up to the Black Power movement. Apparently Cruse wrote the book as an advisement to intellectuals and even movement leaders to not make the same mistakes of the past. Because I was reading this mostly for research, I wasn't reading it for style, at least not initially. But one can't help but notice how polemic Cruse is - none of your faves are safe (Lorraine Hansberry, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright). There is so much content in here, about 85% of which is accurate - I'm not sure I've read such a steadfastly polemic work in my life. All the same, besides the point about it being a warning of some kind, I didn't really see what I was supposed to leave with. Again, I read this for research so I was reading this book in piecemeal fashion. But I still left having read sections feeling lost and confused. I'm sure that Cruse felt that was appropriate in the midst of the Black Power Movement. But for the 21st century I'm not sure where he leaves us.